The college reached an agreement with Campus SafetyLt. Joe Cunje that reinstates his employment with the college, according to multiple sources close to Cunje.
Cunje’s employment status moved from “terminated” to on a “leave of absence”until 2018, which means that he can return to work if he is medically cleared. If there is not an opening in Campus Safety, he can be placed in another position. The college will furthermore pay for Cunje and his wife’s medical and dental insurance until 2018.
“As President Veitch said he would, he met personally with [Cunje] and apologized for the college’s failure to honor his long service in an appropriate way,” Director of Communications Jim Tranquada said via email. “We have resolved the situation to [Cunje]’s and our satisfaction. [Cunje] is currently on an extended leave of absence and should his health improve sufficiently, we look forward potentially to welcoming him back to work in the future.”
Earlier in the semester Cunje’s termination spurred controversy on campus, and numerous alumni pledged not to donate to the college in response. Cunje suffered a stroke in January 2013 that left him unable to work; Cunje attributes his medical problems to stress suffered from the reorganization of Campus Safety under the Dean of Students office. After an extended time on medical leave, he was terminated.
Deborah Stewart Martinson lost her battle with cancer on Saturday, passing away peacefully whilesurrounded by family and friends at her Burbank home.She was 67.
Martinson was born May 20, 1946 and raised in Fillmore, California. She married her husband, Barry Martinson, in 1970, and they made a life together as residents of Burbank for over 43 years. Martinson was planning to celebrate her 50th high school class reunion this upcoming June.
An avid tennis, football and baseball fan, Martinson also developed a passion for reading mysteries, detective stories and submarine thrillersat a young age. She cited “Suspect” by Robert Crais as her favorite mystery and the inspiration for her own mystery novel that she someday aspired to write.
Her reading interests sparked a career in writing and literature.Martinson attended Cal State Chico as an undergraduate before receiving her master’s degree from Cal State Northridge and her Ph.D. in English Literature from USC.
Martinson came to Occidental in 1991, eventually becoming a professor of Writing and Rhetoric and Director of Writing Programs until her death. As a biography, autobiography and fiction specialist, she focused on the biographies of those she referred to as “complicated women,” publishing titles such as “Lillian Hellman: A Life with Foxes and Scoundrels” and “Virginia Durr: Southern Radical Come Hell or High Water,” the latter based on the life of a white civil rights leader in Alabama.
Working predominantly as a creative writing professor, Martinson reached her students through the written word. She served as a summer faculty fellow at the Norman Mailer Writers Colony in Provincetown, Massachusetts and was an instrumental figure in the creation of the Oxy Writing Network — a thriving on-campus organization — for the past two decades. Martinson was the 2009 recipient of the Todd and Linda White Teaching Prize and continued to teach creative nonfiction throughout the 2014 spring semester despite her diminishing health.
Colleagues have said that Martinson “lit up when she entered the classroom,” had a knack for storing future stories away in her head and was always genuinely interested in the lives of others.
She is survived by her husband, Barry; daughter Hope; son Jay; four grandchildren; and her German Shepherd Tina Fey, her loyal companion until the end. Most importantly, Martinson is survived by the infectious personality that she conveyed through her various writings, pulling on the heartstrings of the many whose lives she touched and guided.
A memorial service is scheduled for this Friday, May 2 at 11 a.m. at Faith Community Church, 461 Central Ave., Fillmore. A celebration of Martinson’s life for Occidental students, faculty and staff will take place at the start of the fall semester.
Emotions flared at the board of trustees spring dinner as members of the Occidental community presented statistics and expressed concern about sexual assault to members of the board as they exited the dinner. The conversation turned contentious once board members engaged in a heated discussion with students and faculty attending the vigil, prompting Associate Vice President Marsha Schnirring to intervene at one point. A trustee also pushed a camera into the face of an Occidental alumna, who was filming the encounter. President Jonathan Veitch and Dean of Students Barbara Avery left out the back of the event as concerned students held the vigil out front.
The incidents at the event indicated that tensions over sexual assault have not subsided on campus since the issue first gained significant media attention last spring. Activists have lobbied for administrators to be replaced and for more changes to the sexual misconduct policies.
“The board of trustees standing with President Veitch and not taking a stand for justice is the main issue,” politics major and vigil attendee Rachel Buckner (junior) said.
Trustee Cathy Selleck ‘55 pushed a camera into an alumna’s face. She contended that students need to present their concerns in a more constructive manner.
“We need more thought and more calm on behalf of the students,” she said.
Trustee Steven Hinchliffe ‘55 also raised concerns about the faculty members involved with the on-campus activism on sexual assault. He and Selleck partook in a heated discussion with associate professor of politics Caroline Heldman.
“Don’t you have any integrity at all?” Hinchliffe said to Heldman. Objecting to Heldman accusing him of bullying a student who was asking questions about sexual assault, he also told Heldman that she needed to consult help for some serious problems.
Hinchliffe repeatedly demanded a list of names of students who had been convicted of rape. He became increasingly irritated as the students and faculty present could not provide him that information due to privacy laws. He also was not convinced by activists that the administration acted improperly when addressing rape on campus.
“If I knew that a student at this college had at a particular point in time raped someone and that the administration had failed to act on that, I, as a trustee, would be outraged,” he said. “I have no such knowledge of that. If I did, I would act, and I believe every member of the board would act.”
The college still awaits the Title IX report that will potentially outline problems in the college’s previous handlings of sexual assault. There are currently 52 complainants that filed the original complaint and the related addendums. Part of the complaint covers the alleged lack of or light sanctions against those found responsible for sexual assault.
“I have asked [the administration] ‘Has anybody raped someone that you haven’t told me about?’” Henchliffe said. “And they haven’t. Nobody has said to me that someone has raped someone, and we won’t tell you who it is. That has not happened.”
When presented with cases in which those found responsible stayed on campus, Henchliffe said that he “had no knowledge of such instances” but maintained that the administration has kept the board completely informed.
Board of Trustees Chair Chris Calkins ‘67 echoed the sentiment that the administration continues to keep the board up to date.
“The college has taken significant steps, and the president has been committed to doing the right thing to make sure things are right, and they have kept the board fully informed,” Calkins said.
After the board members left the event, Heldman and the other participants gathered in a circle to debrief and collect themselves. “So this is where we are a year later,” Heldman said.
What’s the same
Since the filing of the TItle IX complaint one year ago, students have accused multiple high level administrators of discouraging survivors from going to the police about their alleged assaults.
“It’s not strictly prohibited by state or federal law to dissuade a student from going to the police, but I think the Department of Education would interpret it as a Clery violation if a university aggressively discouraged reporting, because Clery requires universities to make students aware of their right to go to the police,” Executive Director of the Student Press Law Center Frank LoMonte said. “That right would be meaningless if the school pressured you not to exercise it.”
The Department of Education’s “Dear Colleagues” Letter also lays out the problems with dissuading a survivor from reporting to the police.
“A school should notify a complainant of the right to file a criminal complaint, and should not dissuade a victim from doing so either during or after the school’s internal Title IX investigation,” the letter says. “For instance, if a complainant wants to file a police report, the school should not tell the complainant that it is working toward a solution and instruct, or ask, the complainant to wait to file the report.”
Members of Oxy Sexual Assault Coalition (OSAC) and other students have raised concerns with Occidental’s policy on effective consent. These students argue that only verbal consent is truly effective, especially in instances where sexual encounters do not follow the typical sexual continuum.
“We talked about why physical or verbal consent does not work because not all sexual encounters follow this sexual script,” biology major Hannah Kessel (junior), who authored the petition for sexual assault alerts, said of a meeting she had with Veitch. “We also talked about situations where it might be necessary for verbal consent to make sure that you weren’t forcing your partner into something.”
Despite these meetings, the contested “verbal or physical consent” language remains in the college’s policy.
“At the time I remember feeling really excited about working with administrators and giving them the opportunity to be on the forefront of policy changes,” Kessel said. “But since then I feel a lot more jaded on the form these conversations should take. I feel a lot more frustrated and less optimistic because I think that administrators and trustees have been given the opportunity and the information, the research to make the changes, and they have failed to do so. So they have missed the ability to be on the forefront, and now they are behind.”
One student, who wished to remain anonymous, alleges having gone to the administration to request accommodations after a sexual assault but was told that a person must report assaults to either the college or to the police in order to begin the process of getting accommodations.
Ruth Jones, the Title IX coordinator, said that should not be true. Although she would need to be made aware of an assault, a person would not need to go through the adjudication process in order to receive accommodations from the school.
Dean of Students Barbara Avery only said that accommodations went through Jones but would not comment if she was involved in arranging any accommodations previously.
The college hired lawyers Gina Smith and Leslie Gomez last April to report on Occidental’s sexual misconduct policy and the handling of previous cases. Their report has been delayed numerous times; it was slated to come out at the beginning of the school year, then at varying dates in the the school year and then at the end of this month. Veitch now says that the report will be out in six to eight weeks.
What’s different
Veitch stated that the college has made a number of changes over the course of the past year. These changes include the addition of a Title IX coordinator and a survivor advocate, increased mandatory education for students, the hiring of Smith and Gomez to evaluate policies and procedures, the creation of a hotline for survivors and a number of other changes. Jones plans to report yearly on the updates and changes her office makes.
“We have made pages and pages of changes so that this isn’t repeated. There’s a lot of misinformation that is going around,” Selleck said.
Calkins believes that students simply do not understand how many changes have been made.
“I believe that the president and the administration have taken significant steps in dealing with this issue,” he said. “I regret that not everyone understands the scope of the changes being made or the conditions of the college today to address the issue. I think it is an important issue and it will remain important. It is an important issue in a series of issues.”
Despite the changes, a group of concerned alumni delivered a petition to Veitch demanding changes to the college. They gave him a deadline of April 30 to make the safety changes that they claim are needed.
“We have already made major changes,” Veitch said via email. “There will be other changes based on the reports and recommendations we receive as well as on [Jones]’s own professional analysis. Arbitrary deadlines that don’t take into consideration the complexities of the issue and the underlying facts aren’t going to be effective in moving us forward.”
The college also cites its sanctions statistics to demonstrate that it is serious about punishing sexual assault on campus.
Alleged perpetrators in 16 of 22 cases from August 2009 to December 2013 were found responsible for sexual misconduct. That misconduct ranged from sexual harassment to non-consensual intercourse. Nine of the 16 cases in which the respondent was found responsible resulted in expulsion, meaning 56 percent of those found guilty were expelled. The 16 cases involved 12 individual respondents, which means nine of the 12 were expelled, according to Director of Communications Jim Tranquada.
At the vigil, protesters demanded a zero-tolerance policy that would result in the expulsion of 100 percent of respondents found responsible for sexual assault.
OSAC announced last week that it was becoming an all-student organization in order to better serve students and survivors.
“In that past, the conflict between OSAC and the administration has been well known,” Latino/a Latin American Studies major Robert Rodriguez-Donoso (junior) said via email on behalf of OSAC. “As we recently announced via our facebook page, OSAC is moving in a new direction. We are now a completely student organized coalition, with new faculty advisors for the 2014-2015 school year. This was a collaborative decision made by OSAC. We want to bring back OSAC’s focus exclusively to serving Oxy by continuing to support survivors on this campus through advocating for policy, procedural, and cultural changes. OSAC will also continue to strive to be a supportive and resourceful group for survivors of all identities and backgrounds. OSAC also supports independent student organizing around issues of sexual assault, such as the recent candlelight vigil, but we maintain the autonomy of our organization. OSAC looks forward to working with students, faculty, and administration as a whole in the coming year to make Occidental a safer and more equitable environment for all students, with improved policies and procedures.”
Some faculty have grown weary of the constant fighting on campus. Some professors signed a letter last month to the faculty outlining their concerns about conduct in faculty meetings.
“We write to you today out of concern for the well being of the college, and out of a sense that our faculty participation in college issues is becoming increasingly unproductive. Although several of the issues currently on our minds might only have emerged through direct and forceful confrontation, we believe that the animosity and polarization that now characterize our participation have put the college in a dangerous position,” the letter says.
Professor of biology Gretchen North signed the petition because she wanted to give more faculty the opportunity to voice their opinions in a less hostile environment.
“My reason for signing the letter was at odds with the way it was interpreted, as an effort to silence dissenting voices,” North said. “My true purpose was to help more voices be heard, particularly from people who find it difficult to speak in a highly charged atmosphere. But stifle dissent? Never.”
Amid all of the controversy, Veitch said that he is still in negotiations regarding a contract extension with the board.
The Occidental baseball team (18-20 overall, 14-13 SCIAC) entered SCIAC pool play Saturday competing with La Verne (18-20 overall, 14-13 SCIAC) and Redlands (15-22 overall, 14-13 SCIAC) for the fourth-and -final league playoff spot. The squad responded to the pressure positively by winning two of its three weekend contests.
The Tigers split a home doubleheader Saturday, defeating Caltech (1-32 overall, 0-26 SCIAC) via mercy rule 11-1 and dropping a 2-1 heartbreaker to second-place Chapman (27-11 overall, 20-7 SCIAC). They then rounded out the weekend with a dominant 7-0 victory at third-place Whittier (21-17 overall, 17-10 SCIAC) Sunday.
The black and orange did not face much pressure from last-place Caltech, as the unit cruised to an 11-1 victory in a shortened seven innings.
The game served as a breakout opportunity for Weekly staff member and outfielder Devon DeRaad (first-year). The left-hander compiled a 4-for-4 day at the plate and drove in eight of the team’s 11 runs en route to finishing a single shy of the cycle. He pounded a grand slam in the third inning and a solo shot that invoked the 10-run rule in the bottom of the seventh.
DeRaad’s performance took pressure off starter Alec Strain (senior), who picked up the victory on the mound. He tossed five innings and allowed just one run on three hits. Strain was one of 14 Tiger seniors honored before the game, as the class of 2014 took to Andersen Field for the final time in their careers.
However, the overwhelming success against Caltech did not carry over for the Tigers against Chapman in the afternoon cap.
Occidental’s Joe Kling (junior) and the Panther’s Kevin Osaki (senior) developed a pitchers’ duel in a manner reminiscent of their match-up from February 14, when the Tigers notched a 3-1 victory in 12 innings.
“You just have to give [Osaki] a lot of credit,” Kling said. “He was mixing it up, throwing a lot of sliders and we just couldn’t get the big hit when we needed it. But overall, [we had] pretty good approaches at the plate; it was just unfortunate.”
This time, however, the Panthers turned the table despite Kling hurling a gem. The Tiger ace threw a complete game, allowing just one earned on four hits.
But Chapman pushed the winning run across the plate in the top of the ninth when third baseman Tyler Cook (sophomore) hit a sharp ground ball that Occidental shortstop Riley Smith (senior) did not field cleanly. His error allowed Panther second baseman Tim Alhanati (sophomore) to score.
The Tiger offense stranded 12 men on base in the contest, which included leaving the bases loaded in the bottom of the seventh after first baseman Johnathan Brooks (junior) narrowly missed a home run with a deep drive down the right field line that hooked foul at the last second.
“[Chapman] did a good job of getting the leadoff out,” Tiger head coach Luke Wetmore said. “It’s harder to run an offense — even with first and second — with one out. From that standpoint, we had opportunities, but they weren’t as advantageous as they could have been.”
But the black and orange did not keep its head down for long.
The squad responded the very next day with a resounding 7-0 victory over playoff-bound Whittier.
Starting pitcher Mitch Margolis (senior) picked up right where Kling left off, going the distance for the third time this season and shutting out the Poets in the process.
Offensively, Occidental took advantage of four Whittier errors to plate seven runs. Four Tigers — catcher Charlie Caccamo (sophomore), second baseman Van Fudge (senior), third baseman A.J. Libunao (junior) and DeRaad —all tallied multi-hit games, while Brooks and Alec Strain each collected two RBI.
Caccamo, typically an infielder, started all three pool play games behind the plate in the absence of injured Victor Munoz (junior), who has been nursing back problems over the course of the campaign. Caccamo controlled the pitching staff and also got the job done with his bat, reaching base at a rate of .462 and laying down two sacrifice bunts against Caltech.
“Small ball is going to be asked of me a lot,” Caccamo said. “We work on it all the time in practice. At this point, you just have to trust it.”
The Tigers held the fourth-place tiebreaker over both La Verne and Redlands and controlled their own destiny for their final game of pool play at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) Tuesday.
“We just need to play good baseball; it’s as cliche as it comes,” Wetmore said.
The Tigers were in action at CMS Tuesday at the time of publication. A victory over the Stags would punch Occidental’s ticket to travel to Cal Lutheran Friday to open the second-annual SCIAC Postseason Tournament.
Allow me, if you will, to steal and paraphrase from three men better than I will ever be: This might just do nobody any good. But now the end is near, and as I face the final curtain for my Weekly blog, I am feeling a tad nostalgic and sappy. It is on that note that I would like to give one last good luck and goodbye to the people and the campus that, for better or worse, made me the musical moron that I am today.
In fact, I am going to break one of my own rules and talk about my favorite song, and why it holds that esteemed position. It is one I have brought up before, but for the uninitiated who have not heard me talk endlessly about Bruce Springsteen, the work in question is Track 5, Side 1 off of the 1978 album “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” The Boss’ masterpiece “Racing in the Street.”
Biographer Dave Marsh called this track “the line of demarcation separating casual Springsteen fans from the fanatics,” and I could not agree more. Among my friends who regularly cruise E Street, there is a universal recognition of this song’s brilliance, even if it is not one’s favorite. It encompasses everything that makes Bruce Springsteen one of the greatest American voices in pop culture — a manifestation of his strongest works musically, lyrically, and emotionally. All of this contributed to a moment in April 2012 when I heard the song live, and what I learned about myself and music that night.
The journey starts a few years before the concert and a little under a thousand miles north of Los Angeles in my hometown of Tualatin, Oregon. As a budding young music enthusiast (a precursor to the obsessive-compulsive one I am today), I had decided I needed to not just own a few of Bruce’s albums, but all of the albums. Settling for nothing less, I began expanding my collection with the aforementioned “Darkness.” To this day, it remains one of my favorite collections from the E Street Band as a stark, melancholy work of art that hinted at the darker albums to come.
It was not until my sophomore year of college that I found myself often playing a particular selection from Darkness. Whether I was lifeguarding, spending long hours on homework in the Green Bean or hiking back to my dorm from the library, I was constantly turning to “Racing in the Street” as my song of choice.
At first, I could not place exactly what drew me to the song. It seemed to be more subdued than my usual favorites from The Boss and a bit too long for the softer tracks of his I enjoyed. Yet, by the time April and the impending concert rolled around, it had become a daily part of my routine. Wake up, leave my dorm, play “Racing.” Go to class, go the library, play “Racing.” Finish my work, pack up, play “Racing.”
Eventually, I figured out why I was falling in love with this track. Musically, the ballad-like composition is nothing short of brilliant. The instruments slowly build one on top of the other, from Roy Bittan’s gentle piano, the steady beat of Max Weinberg’s drums, to the haunting subtlety of the late, great Danny Federici’s organ. When played live, the guitars and bass become more prominent, as does the horn section, only adding more beautiful layers to the tune. “Racing” ends with a coda that is extended longer during concerts, only adding to the grand scale of the song.
Lyrically, it is some of Springsteen’s finest work. A spiritual successor to “Thunder Road,” the protagonists grow up racing their souped-up rides “from the fire roads to the interstate.” The song plays on tropes of young American men finding escape and freedom behind the wheel of a car.
However, it is not a cheery portrayal of this stereotypical scene. There is not a guaranteed happy ending for the racer and his girlfriend. As they get older, the stress and worries take their toll, particularly on the woman, who spends her night alone worrying, staring into the night “with the eyes of one who hates for just being born.”
I told my friends Gary, Carol, Clarence and Wendy (as always, names changed to protect the innocent and guilty alike) all these things on the drive over to the show, along with the hope that we might hear the song that night. I was not expecting it, since Gary and I had looked at set lists from earlier stops on the “Wrecking Ball” Tour and did not see it on any recent concert summaries.
This is why, when the first few piano notes echoed across the L.A. Sports Arena,, I sat down and (my friends will attest to this) held my face in my hands with only my eyes peeking out for the duration of the song. It was unlike anything I had experienced before, both in music and in life, and I do not know if I will ever have a moment akin to it again. (While not the exact performance I saw, this professionally filmed version best captures what I witnessed.)
Remember how I warned you about me becoming uncharacteristically sentimental? Good. Let’s continue.
I have been thinking about that song constantly ever since that night, and much more often as of late. The prospect of leaving the bubble of college and entering the larger world is terrifying, but like most trials and obstacles, I am making sense of it the best way I can — with music.
There might be a danger in this, using pop culture to define and shape how we perceive the world around us. Too often we become associated with the things we love, and not why we love them. Sure, I do not mind being known as “that guy with all the band t-shirts” or “that guy who talked about superheroes in the Green Bean for over an hour,” but that is only telling half of the story.
When we are young, we expect everything to have a happy Disney ending — that all of our relationships, platonic and otherwise, will last lifetimes and play out like all of those that came before. Ironically, as I grew older, I found myself and others identifying more with the cynics and the depressed. We thought we had grown up, and instead began accepting “500 Days of Summer” and other tales and tunes of heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss as our reality.
Yet talking about this is just as cliched as the happy ending, and is not necessarily a better way to lead a life. Why do listeners gravitate toward these more “honest” stories and songs? Are they really any more accurate? In truth, loving sad songs (which is essentially loving most of pop music) is a masochistic relationship, especially for those who define their lives through lyrics and guitar riffs. We expect the music to be there for us — to help us through another breakup, the dissolution of a family or group of friends, even just to get by when facing another day seems like too much.
And then the music changes. Our favorite bands let us down. Where we once loved an artist we now find it easy to hate on them. Sharing music brings no joy. The heroes we strove to emulate turn out to be just as weak and flawed as we are.
Sound familiar? It might, since the same aspects can be said about what might happen to the other seniors and I in a few weeks, why the idea of graduating can be terrifying. Friends fall out of touch. We get caught up in job hunts, graduate school classes, paying rent. Over time, we begin just standing still during concerts, another glowing face in a sea of smartphones.
Despite this I am hopeful, and it is all because of “Racing in the Street.”
On the cusp of real adulthood — not I-can-finally-legally-go-to-the-bars adulthood, but actual responsibilities and worries adulthood — the idea of becoming disconnected from what moved me in my youth, of being alone and dissatisfied, seems alarmingly possible. But even if I only have a chance at finding success that works for me I want to take it, because the alternative, of becoming stagnant and stuck in a rut for the rest of my life, is an even worse prospect.
That is the ultimate message of “Racing in the Street,” and what music truly means to me. By the end, the narrator and his girlfriend are not ready to accept the world around them. With no certain promises, they strike out one last time for the chance at redemption, to drive to the sea and “wash these sins off (their) hands.”
The best music, even at its saddest and most depressing, is about redemption. Everyone, from the rockers to the rappers, the poets and the punks, can find meaning and hope on the neck of a guitar, on a DJ controller, through even the cheapest pair of headphones. With music, you can grow old while still staying young in spirit, even if it is only for a fleeting moment, because ultimately it is better to fail trying than to never try at all. It’s like they say: it’s better to burn out than fade away.
The best music, like people, are the ones you fall in love with each time you more than once. I loved music before I heard “Racing in the Street,” but I did not truly understand that love until later on after the concert. True, listening to it now does not produce the exact same effect as it did back then, but some part of that night comes back to me each time I play that song, and that is what is most important. The songs and people that stay with you, that mean something, even if you cannot always explain it, are the ones you fall in love with over and over again.
I am not always the best at expressing myself, but if there is anything to take from “Three Minute Record” and me, from “Racing in the Street,” from music, and from pop culture as a messy, awkward, painful, beautiful whole, it is this: “Some guys they just give up living/Start dying little by little piece by piece/Some guys come home from work and wash up/And go racing in the street.” I think I am more ready to face graduation now, because I will not face it alone. I have the best friends, brothers and family than I could ever ask for, and when things get rough, I will always have The Boss to lean on.
There is a promise in music: not a certain promise, but a promise all the same, and anyone who tries to impede the road to that promise best keep out of the way. Because summer’s here and the time is right for racing in the street.
Until next time: No retreat, no surrender.
JTB
Jack Butcher is a senior history major. He can be reached at butcher@oxy.edu or on Twitter @WklyJButcher.
Public protests and angry media outcries abounded in wake of the documentary “Blackfish,” directed by Occidental alumna Gabriela Cowperthwaite ’93. Exposing the dark practices that SeaWorld utilizes to create its famous shows involving trainers interacting with “tamed” orcas led, unsurprisingly, to a lawsuit, and SeaWorld lost.
The majestic orca breaching in the wild (Source: CC)
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is charged with making sure workers are operating in safe conditions. OSHA filed a suit against SeaWorld after the public, tragic drowning of an orca trainer in February 2010, who was grabbed by the ponytail by resident orca Tilikum to her death at the bottom of a pool. The lawsuit centered around whether the danger of interacting with orcas was justified by the wonder and majesty of humans and animals performing in tandem. The court ruled that the justification didn’t cut it.
No longer will trainers be balancing on the noses of these wild animals. (Source: CC)
Following this decision, SeaWorld is required to have a barrier between animals and trainers at all times. This will completely end the famed shows involving wetsuit-clad trainers riding on the fins of whales, performing acrobatics, and even being present in a close proximity on stage with one another.
The decision made by the court certainly has the potential to further damage the appeal of the water-based theme park, whose visiting numbers have plummeted since the release of “Blackfish.” SeaWorld has argued that they contribute to educating the public on issues related to the animals that live in our nation’s oceans, which is true to the extent that, without a visit to the park, some individuals would not be exposed to marine life and its wonder. However, by making the park into a carnival-like experience depicting marine life as subservient and respondent to human instruction, SeaWorld is completely missing the educational opportunity of demonstrating the interaction between human and whale. Training wild animals to act as an example for an entire species allows humans to think of animals as their property or entertainment, rather than as part of the ecosystem that should be respected and, for its health, largely left alone.
Educational tour vessel observes an orca in the wild (Source: CC)
The experience of SeaWorld is sharply contrasted with other opportunities to see orcas outside of a tiny pool. On an orca tour boat in the Puget Sound, naturalists work with boat captains to track orca pods, but leave a safe space to make sure that the boat and its passengers don’t intrude on the natural activities of the whales. SeaWorld does the complete opposite — it forces animals to act completely adverse to their biological intuition, which results in miseducation and danger for those charged with training and interacting with the orcas. The decision of the court is the right one. SeaWorld needs to take responsibility for the damage they are causing on both orcas and humans, both inside and outside the gates of the theme park.
Jill Goatcher is a senior politics major and marine biology minor. She can be reached at goatcher@oxy.edu or on Twitter @WklyJGoatcher.
Occidental students officially elected Diplomacy and World Affairs (DWA) major Chris Weeks (sophomore) as president of the Associated Students of Occidental College (ASOC) for the 2014-2015 school year. 1,060 people voted in the election this year, the largest number of voters for an ASOC election in the past five years.
“I feel relieved that it’s over,” Weeks said. “I think it’s been a very tense week. It’s been emotionally draining and physically draining. It was a good experience to reach out to people and hear a lot of the issues that I hadn’t considered before. I think we have a good direction for next year.”
Weeks won the election with 434 votes over his opponent, undeclared major Mary Fulham (first-year).
“I knew it was going to be intense; I didn’t realize how intense it was going to be,” Fulham said. “I’m thrilled that Senate is going to be in such good hands like Chris; I never had any worries about the direction of Senate. I knew Chris would do a fantastic job if he was elected, and I’m sure he will.”
Current ASOC President and economics and politics double major Nick McHugh (junior) shared his opinion on the election.
“I think the election was wildly over-politicized. Naturally, candidates are going to go against each other, but I think there were stronger forces than just Mary versus Chris — but, if the effort that both of these candidates put into their campaigns is in any way a representation of the effort that they’re going to put into next year, then I think ASOC is in a great position,” McHugh said.
Other election results include Critical Theory and Social Justice (CTSJ) major Karen Romero (sophomore) as the new Vice President for Academic Affairs and Urban and Environmental Policy (UEP) major Rachel Young (sophomore) as the Vice President for Internal Affairs.
Two more vice president positions were filled in this election: economics major William Huang (sophomore) will serve as the Vice President for Finance and undeclared major Judy Lee (first-year) will be the new Vice President for External Affairs. Both candidates ran unopposed and won their races by default.
In a very close race, politics and philosophy double major Keven Duran (junior) and DWA major Kerry Sakimoto (junior) were elected as senior class senators. DWA major Tiffany Odeka (sophomore) and DWA major Abhilasha Bhola (sophomore) were elected as the new junior class senators and politics major Adrian Adams (first-year) and undeclared major Mallory Leeper (first-year) were voted senators for the sophomore class.
Finally, kinesiology major Paige Sapienza (sophomore) was elected as the new the new Honor Board Juror.
The Occidental community lost half of its beloved duck couple this weekend. On Sunday, April 20, amid Easter festivities, the female fountain duck was found belly-up in the same reservoir that a few weeks ago had served as the site of conception for her recently-laid eggs.
Two students looking to showcase the ducks in a video project were some of the first people to notice her absence.
“Sam Bellamy and I were filming a Spanish project about a poem called Meciendo, which is about a mother’s love and the love of nature, so we figured the ducks would be the perfect subject to film. But when we got there, one of the ducks was floating face up in the fountain while the other swam close beside her,” undeclared major Jane Drinkard (first-year) said. “It was really awful and disturbing and horribly ironic and we didn’t really know what to do.”
The cause of death has not been confirmed. According to assistant professor of biology John McCormack, who had been monitoring the ducks for several weeks, the female had been severely injured in the days leading up to her death.
“Shewas gone for a while because she was incubating eggs in a nest somewhere under Herrick bridge,” McCormack said. “Then about a week ago, we started seeing her around more and she seemed to be injured. Facilities let us know that the nest had basically been destroyed. So we speculated that some sort of predator like a coyote, raccoon or dog found the nest and the duck and injured the duck and destroyed the nest.”
A group of students who encountered the duck limping Thursday night worried they may have accidentally killed the duck with kindness.
“I was sitting by the fountain with a few peeps, and the duck was sitting [just outside the fountain] in a pool of it’s own filth,” Diplomacy and World Affairs (DWA) major Wilson Terrall (sophomore) said. “Someone walked up close to it to talk or something, and it tried to climb into the fountain but stumbled and hurt it’s leg. My guess was a stress fracture. So [Weekly staff member] Emma Lodes put the duck into the fountain, lifting it with Collin Evenson’s sweatshirt. And the rest is history.”
McCormack reassured the students that they had little to worry about.
“It was hurt for a couple days and it was kind of hanging on but we didn’t think the prospects were very good. It was not going to make it one way or another,” McCormack said.
The ducklings are also not projected to survive.
“I think that had it not been taken out by a predator they would have successfully hatched a brood,” McCormack said. “It’s a definite bummer. We needed ducklings.”
Occidental’s duck couple appeared on campus at the end of March.
“In the winter, ducks congregate in bigger groups and then when the breeding season hits, they form into pairs and fly into the urban landscape,” McCormack said. “They disperse out there and find little places to settle down to raise their brood.”
Upon arrival at Occidental, the ducks seemed to attain instant celebrity status. On April 9, the Facebook page “Oxy Confessions” featured a photo of the couple with the caption, “This could be us but you playin’,” and received 370 likes.
“Confession 3106 has officially received the most likes so far,” the “Oxy Confessions” moderator wrote. “I was very saddened to hear about the death of the Oxy duck. I can honestly say that I enjoyed seeing those two ducks always together everyday.RIP Ducky, Oxy will miss you.”
Some considered the couple a symbol of love on campus, which explains how they earned the informal superlative, “Oxy’s favorite couple.” Students submitted more duck-related confessions once news broke about the female’s pregnancy.
“The hatching of the Oxy ducklings is legitimately one of the things I’m looking forward to the most for the rest of this semester,” Confession No. 3174 read.
After the duck’s death, students used the confessions page to express their grief. One April 29 submission — a eulogy to the fallen duck — garnered 194 likes.
“You were a good duck,” Confession No. 3201 read. “You circled the fountain like no other and kept Mr. Mallard happy. Your days of waddling around the fountain’s edges may be over, but your memory lives on.”
President of the Brookings Institution and former Deputy Secretary of State under the Clinton Administration Strobe Talbott spoke at Occidental Tuesday in his lecture, “Vladimir Putin vs the 21st Century: How the Last Month Has Made Global Governance Harder.” Talbott discussed how the recent actions by Putin in Ukraine have created new tension between Russia and the West.
After his introduction by Diplomacy and World Affairs (DWA) professor Sanjeev Khagram, Talbott gave a summation of how he came to know Ambassador Derek Shearer, who currently serves as director of the McKinnon Center for Global Affairs.
Talbott became interested in Russia because of its history and culture, but also because of the Soviet threat present since the beginning of the Cold War.
“It is very difficult for you students to imagine what it was like over a period of decades to never be entirely sure, when we woke up in the morning, that we would survive the day,” Talbott said. “The threat of global thermo-nuclear holocaust was constant, [it] was a sort of damocles. And the thread by which that sword hung was very frail indeed and certainly built that way during the Cuban missile crisis.”
According to Talbott, the course that Russia has been taking up this point has been out of a desire to become a normal modern state. But now Russia appears to be taking a U-turn.
“With the stroke of a pen, [Putin] repudiated and reversed Boris Yeltsin’s crucial decision that was supposed to last forever,” Talbott said.
Talbott introduced the concept of irredentism, the seizing of the territory of another state to reunite people of the same ethnicity, as a driving force for Putin’s actions. According to Talbott, this is an old practice that many had hoped had died out in the 20th century.
“We are living in an era of Putinism,” Talbott said. “Irredentism is the external 21st century manifestation of Putinism itself.”
But the internal manifestations of Putinism — what goes on within the borders of Russia — is where Talbott claims Putinism will fail for three reasons: First, Putin’s exploitation of Russian nationalism is likely to backfire abroad; second, Putin’s Russian chauvinism is likely to backfire within Russia itself; and third, Putin’s biggest failure is that he is essentially offering authoritarianism, crony capitalism, continuing corruption, a resource-cursed backward economy, a crippled healthcare system and a demographic crisis that is harassing the slavic population.
What he is offering, according to Talbott, is the reinstatement of some of the most fatal features of the U.S.S.R.
Putinism will only last as long as the Russian people allow it to last. Talbott believes that the end of Putinism would come quicker if there is a forceful voice backed by national and international resolve.
Talbott then brought Occidental back into his speech because he believes that Putinism will only be stopped by Occidental’s most famous alumnus: Barack Obama ‘.
“This is a bully pulpit moment for Barack Hussein Obama,” Talbott said. “Given the spreading doubts that the west cannot do anything to reign in Putinism — and they are beginning to dominate the commentary right now — I would say this is a moment for President Obama to get up and say at some length, ‘Yes we can reign in Putinism, and here is how we are going to do it.’ Let us hope he seizes that moment and that he does so soon.”
Talbott ended his talk by opening up a discussion between himself and the students in attendance.
DWA major Ian Mariani (senior), who asked Talbott questions after the talk, enjoyed the lecture.
“For [Talbott] to present, essentially, an opinion that I thought was very good in the sense that I have seen a lot of Cold Warriors try to return to the rhetoric, try to return to this idea that it’s the Soviet Union again. It is good to see someone get up there, who has the knowledge of the Soviet Union for all of its history and to say it is a different game. It is Putinism. It is not necessarily Soviet nationalism as he has known it, or as any of us have ever learned about it,” Mariani said.
DWA major Rachel Farkas (senior) also enjoyed what Talbott had to say and appreciated his background as a journalist.
“Although I would say he is an intellectual, I would not necessarily say he is an academic. He studied Russia but his background as a journalist sets him up to be wanting to know more about everything,” Farkas said. “I think Strobe Talbott is different from other Cold Warriors, like the speaker we had a couple weeks ago. He does not seem to be stuck in that way of thinking. He recognizes the impossible, but he does not see it as only a geopolitical or security issue. He is looking at it with a constructivist mindset.”
So there’s this TV show, right. It’s set in the future, where a nefarious artificial intelligence has essentially conquered Earth with a robot army nuked the planet and forced the last remnants of humanity into a small city. Nope, this isn’t “Terminator.” It’s “Power Rangers RPM,” the last “Power Rangers” season produced by Disney. “RPM” feels like the culmination of everything I’ve been talking about this semester.
It’s a well-told episodic story, the characters are worth caring about and it’s a huge guilty pleasure. Maybe “guilty pleasure” isn’t exactly the right word for it, but it’s definitely for a certain audience. And if you’re in that audience? You’ll dig the hell out of it.
Look, if you’ve never had an affinity for the “Power Rangers” franchise or the Japanese style of “masked hero” shows, I don’t know that “RPM” will do much for you. If you’re the kind of person who can watch “Regular Show” without feeling guilt, that may be enough to make up the difference. But if you’re bridging seasons of “True Detective” with your fifth “Breaking Bad” re-watch, just try “The West Wing” and skip the spandex.
Ever since “Adventure Time,” the idea that a show for the younger set can appeal to older folks has become more widely accepted. There’s a distinction between “fun for all ages” and “this is a kid’s show that somebody dropped a couple sex jokes into,” and “Power Rangers RPM” definitely falls into the former category.
The action is certainly fun – there’s a certain joy in watching a grown man yell out his attack before whacking a giant rubber monster with a sword that looks like a road – but “RPM’s” action holds value beyond the childlike glee of big ol’ lasers. The Green Ranger, Ziggy, is objectively terrible at fighting, so his fighting style is certainly…improvised. Remember those drunken bar fights from “The World’s End?” He fights like that. So you’ve got all these highly choreographed fighters and then one guy wildly flailing about. It’s a creative decision that works better in action than it does on the page.
It’s also got a surprisingly aware sense of humor. There’s a lengthy segment in an episode dedicated to picking apart several tropes unique to the franchise. Why do the robots have giant anime eyes? Why do the Rangers need to yell out a specific phrase when morphing? “RPM” clearly knows what it’s dealing with, and is more concerned with having fun than playing these cliches straight for nostalgia’s sake. In shows like this, deconstruction often comes hand in hand with smugness, but “RPM” appreciates what has come before.
The story is surprisingly well-told for a “Power Rangers” show. Within the first couple episodes, the audience is given all the necessary information. This evil computer virus wants to kill all the people. Here are the main characters and here’s what’s up with them. This is Ziggy. He’s the best. Before the show gets into the business of the actual plot, it dedicates some time to establishing the protagonists.
Once we know who these characters are, the show ties character development and plot together, forming a real story. It succeeds where “House of Cards” failed: Episodes move both characters and plot forward. And characters are prone to failure, which is certainly welcome in a kid’s action show. Of course they defeat the big monster at the end with their giant robot (Quick aside: They actually combine every robot they have into an enormous robot), but that sometimes comes with sacrifice or another personal failure.
The writing also talks up to its audience; like when the show almost outright stated that a government agency kidnapped and brainwashed a young girl or a certain Ranger helped prevent a genocide. There’s no sugarcoating here, and the light, personable dialogue helps prevent the darker elements from dominating the tone. Instead, both elements work together, populating its universe with characters who are absolutely in danger.
Look, “Power Rangers RPM” is a tough sell. But there’s also no getting around it: This show just works. The writing is fun and the action often brought a huge grin to my face. This is old “Power Rangers” filtered through rose-colored glasses and brought into reality. It’s just a damn fine show.
Mike Cosimano is a first-year psychology major. He can be reached at cosimanowhite@oxy.edu or on Twitter @WklyMCosimano.
